


our stories of the gentle fall

by andreaphobia



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale learning how to fall, M/M, Sumer, The Crucifixion, The Garden of Eden, and finally, crepes and wine during the reign of terror, love literally through the ages, post-church scene shenanigans, raising baby Jesus, the capital C creation, the capital F fall, the fateful battle for the soul of England, the six thousand year burn, the temptation of Christ, well-done steaks are a sin, who's really the idiot here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 11:45:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19722997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andreaphobia/pseuds/andreaphobia
Summary: Of a love six thousand years in the making.





	our stories of the gentle fall

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I need to say that parts of this were heavily inspired by [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer)'s works, particularly [Bright with his Splendour](https://archiveofourown.org/works/99482). I read this when I was younger, and it really shaped the way I see the two of them and the course of their relationship in a fundamental way. Those events are now baked into the spongy loaf of my headcanon. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend you do.
> 
> This contains a mix of book and show events as well as others that I just made up completely. I did do some research but must apologise to history buffs for any mistakes that remain; for those I can only claim artistic licence.
> 
> Title taken from Vienna Teng's wonderful 'Gravity'.

In the Beginning, God created the world and all life in it.

This was widely considered to be a success, being rated quite highly by anyone without clinical depression. Sure, there was lots of needless pain and suffering, but on the whole, life was beautiful. Critics panned global warming and the lack of karmic retribution as a behavioural incentive, but applauded free will and the invention of the orgasm.

It was far from Her first go at the whole creation business, however, because long before the existence of the Earth, the cosmos, and all the rest of it, She had other designs. From pure light She forged them, form springing forth from nothingness: ethereal, winged creatures, who were to remain by Her side and serve Her. She called them ‘angels’, and as the hosts of heaven, they were splendid to the eye.

Aziraphale was one of these.

In those earliest of days, heaven was not as it would be later. There was no paperwork, for a start. Bureaucracy hadn’t been invented yet. Far simpler times, they were, without the rigid pecking order, or even any such thing as a cherub, or a principality. Instead, as Aziraphale recalled wistfully, there was a certain fraternal feeling amongst the angelic order in those times—one that, in the present day, had long since been scoured away by the burdens of administration.

It might be worth noting at this point that, while the angels had been created as Her servants, they did not _believe_ —at least, not in the same way that humans did. After all, there was hardly any need to believe in the existence of someone that you could actually talk to (or at least sight from a long way off, if you weren’t quite important enough for a face-to-face conversation).

Instead, there were other things that they believed in. Fundamental goodness, for a start. Doing the right thing, even if it’s hard. And above all else, the idea that everything happened for a reason.

Aziraphale believed in all of these precepts whole-heartedly, without any reservations. And for a time, it was good.

He couldn’t have told you exactly when it had all begun to change. It was subtle, as these things often were, so much so that he’d barely noticed it at the time. In hindsight, of course, the warning signs were all there. There he was, walking down one of the hallways in the Tower of Dominion on a courier job, just minding his own business, when he came across two angels whispering behind their hands to each other. It wasn’t unusual to have a chat with a friend on your break, of course, but the strange thing was that when one of them spotted him, they hushed the other and waited until he’d passed, and only resumed their whispered conversation once he’d turned the corner.

Later, during his lunch break in the canteen, he thought he noticed an unusually high concentration of furtive glances being exchanged across the room, as well as another smattering of hushed conversations.

Aziraphale wondered if someone was planning a surprise party. (He was always the last to know about that sort of thing.)

One day there was a commotion in the city square, and he stopped to see what all the fuss was about. A crowd had gathered, and there was a feeling of disquiet in the air. Unable to worm his way through the tight press of bodies, he settled instead for watching from a distance. Milling about nearby were other curious onlookers who, like Aziraphale, had been diverted from their duties by curiosity.

“What’s he going on about?” said one of the angels near Aziraphale’s elbow.

“Dunno, really. Sounds like a load of trouble to me,” another replied.

Aziraphale stood on tiptoes in an attempt to see over all the heads and folded wingtips. In the midst of all the furore was a pontificating figure, whose grand, sweeping gestures could be seen far better than his speech could be heard. He was surrounded on all sides by a gaggle of admirers who were hanging on his every word.

By those days, heaven was crowded enough that Aziraphale couldn’t have told you every single one of their names—but he had a dim recognition of the individual at the centre of it all as the Seraph Lucifer: the one known as the morning star.

As he spoke, Lucifer’s gaze swept over the crowd before him, taking it all in: basking in his influence and the sway that his words held over them. Further back, his line of sight fell upon the small gaggle of angels which contained Aziraphale, and he fixed upon them an imperious stare.

Full of curiosity, Aziraphale gazed back at him, and for just a moment, over all the heads in the crowd, their eyes met.

A shudder ran through Aziraphale, and, filled with dread, he turned his face aside. He was struck most not by the fact of Lucifer’s beauty, which was all-encompassing, but by the terrible look in his eyes. It was hungry, and searching, and selfish. It was like nothing Aziraphale had ever seen before.

By the time he looked back, Lucifer had already moved on.

He still couldn’t hear exactly what was being said, but through gaps in the crowd he caught a few snatches of words—phrases like _our eternal glory_ and _unconquerable will_ , uttered not with irony but with fierce conviction—things that made him feel very, very nervous. At that point he decided it was past time for him to be getting on, and hurried off, ducking his head so as to not have to look anyone else in the eye.

It would probably work itself out somehow, he thought afterwards, with a kind of mild optimism. Everything else he worried about did—that was just the sort of place it was. Give it enough time, and the Almighty would be right along to set everyone straight.

Barely reassured, he returned to his work, deciding quite firmly to put it all behind him.

***

And then the war began.

“Sword, staff, or spear?” drawled the angel behind his makeshift desk, as Aziraphale came through the line for the armoury. The war machine was in full swing, and every able-bodied angel—which was, of course, all of them—was being funnelled into a platoon and sent to the front.

Aziraphale gave the angel a hopeless look. He had never so much as held a weapon before; the closest he’d come to wielding anything at all had been playing a trumpet in the choirs, and poorly, at that. “Um. I’ve never actually... you know.”

He mimed a stabbing motion, laughed weakly, and then shut up as the angel glowered at him over his pince-nez.

“What _are_ you trained in, then?” said the angel, testily. “Can’t you use anything?”

Aziraphale didn’t know what to say. ‘Nothing’, while true, seemed like an answer that would get him in even more trouble. Fool that he was, he had never taken any of the combat electives—he simply hadn’t thought there’d ever be a need for them.

The angel behind the desk sighed, and scribbled something down. “Bloody cannon fodder,” he muttered. “Take a sword, then. Pointy end goes into other people. Next!”

Aziraphale took a sword apprehensively. It was still in its scabbard, and he rather hoped that it would stay that way. As he rejoined his platoon, he thought miserably that it had all gone south so quickly. Like a switch had flipped, something fundamental had changed in the world as he knew it.

He wondered if they would ever be able to go back—and then thought that, whatever it was, he probably wouldn’t like the answer.

So they marched, they flew, and they fought—or at least, others fought, while Aziraphale avoided the front lines as much as he could, inventing excuses to do inventory, or else to help with the supply lines or the wounded. He wasn’t a coward in the typical sense of the word; it was just that the idea of putting the ‘pointy end’ of his sword into other angels gave him pause.

It worried Aziraphale that he could not remember exactly why they were fighting. There must have been a reason, of course—otherwise, it would have all been senseless, which surely wasn’t the case. He was worn out and it was doing things to his memory, that was all. He made a mental note to ask someone, when it was all over. Maybe if he was important enough, they might even tell him something.

He got into the habit of wandering off from the main camp during lulls in the battle, finding somewhere by the outskirts where he could sit and think. If he was close enough to the edge he could even stare across the chasm that lay between the two armies, watching the distant figures of what was now the enemy eating, resting, or else sitting around doing nothing, much like himself. Sometimes, he thought he caught glimpses of faces he’d known from before, but from a distance it was hard to tell if that was for real, or only wishful thinking.

Besides, everyone had the same hollowed-out look these days. It was hard enough to tell them apart from up close.

Going off on one’s own to have a think was usually discouraged by the higher-ups, so he never had company on these little excursions, but just once, he was interrupted by another angel who had happened to be on patrol. The fellow had meandered up the path towards where Aziraphale was sitting by himself. With a glance, Aziraphale recognised him as Jophiel, another angel from his own platoon.

Jophiel had always looked like the sort who needed to be taught which side of the sword was the pointy end, but then would find great joy in applying this newfound knowledge to the bodies of other angels. Out of an instinct for self-preservation, Aziraphale had always been friendly towards him.

He came to a stop nearby, and stared at Aziraphale, who quickly tried not to look as though he had been up to no good.

After a long silence, he grunted, “What you doing over here?”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale. “I’m just—I’m looking for people I know, on the other side.”

He gave a weak smile, which Jophiel did not return. Instead, he turned to stare in the general direction of where the enemy forces were regrouping and licking their wounds, frowning as though Aziraphale had said something difficult to parse.

At last he seemed to decide it was too much effort to figure out. He turned back towards Aziraphale, and spat on the ground. “What for?” He sniggered. “Stupid thing to do, really.”

Still smiling vaguely, Aziraphale only shrugged, and looked down at his feet. It didn’t seem worth the trouble of explaining.

On the eve of what was to be the very last battle, Aziraphale roused himself and supped with a few others in his platoon. Many were jovial, exulting in the righteousness of their cause; the foreordained victory. Aziraphale thought they must not have had very many friends in the before times. He tried not to think about his sword; how it stuck in its scabbard sometimes and wouldn’t come out smoothly. It had become quite a mess, filthied from both the fires of war and the blood of angels. He still hadn’t managed to get the stains off, and it was starting to get embarrassing.

“Shouldn’t be long now, eh?” said a cherub named Zerakhiel, nudging him eagerly. “Word on the wind is that old Michael’s got something up his sleeve. All be over by teatime, I expect.”

“Right,” said Aziraphale vaguely. Actually, maybe he’d give it another go later, use a bit more elbow grease. He probably wasn’t trying hard enough, that’s all.

At that moment, the bugles began to sound. They raised their heads, and then took to the skies as one, forming up in neat blocks. It was, so they had been told, of critical strategic importance to appear united. In contrast to them, the enemy ranks were disorganised, scattered piecemeal across the field of battle. If they had platoon leaders, or even platoons, Aziraphale hadn’t spotted them. On the other side he saw stragglers being nudged back to their feet by bossy cherubs, pestered into returning to battle. (He wondered dully how many of those being chivvied along didn’t want to be there, either.)

A hush fell over the hosts, and Aziraphale looked up. Far overhead, much farther still than the highest of their ranks, Michael had made his appearance. He was speaking, projecting across to the enemy forces, but the booming voice lost clarity the further down it travelled, until the very shape of his words could no longer be made out.

“What’s he saying?” whispered the angel next to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale didn’t know.

And yet, whatever it was he’d said had an effect on its intended audience. Transfixed, they watched as the seraph Lucifer darted forward, his beautiful face contorted by a shriek of rage. He seemed even more glorious, more splendid still than when Aziraphale had last seen him, but again in a way that was somehow terrible to behold. They began to fight one another, first with swords and then without weapons at all, wrestling and tearing at each other in mid-air, swooping and darting about almost too swiftly to be seen. Aziraphale could barely make out what was happening at his distance, but he heard a murmuring arise from the hosts, and then some scattered cheers. Bolstered by this, Aziraphale’s own spirits started to lift.

Suddenly, the air thickened around them, shimmering with some unseen force until it became a blinding light— _the_ blinding light. Aziraphale let out a fearful sound, and threw up a hand to shield his eyes. The presence was all around them, amongst them; it was inside their hearts, laying them bare. Far above, Michael was holding Lucifer over his head like a trophy. Lucifer, who had transformed into a struggling, hissing serpent, seemed desperate to escape.

Unlike before, when Michael spoke this time, every word could be heard clearly, resounding across the field of battle.

“ _Be cast down, Bright and Morning Star, and all your hosts with you!_ ”

At his command, the ground beneath them split open to reveal the cold void that existed beyond. There was no brightness to be found there—only a multitude of terrors. And as all the scattered forces of the other side fled before the encroaching light, they were forced out into the beyond, to be swallowed up by darkness.

Horror-struck, Aziraphale could do nothing but watch their long fall into the deep. Try as he might, he could not block out their fearful wails, and the sound of their myriad voices all coalesced together into a sort of hideous moaning, the pain of which seemed to sear itself into his very being. He did not realise he was crying until his vision began to blur. How pitiful they were; how long and cold the descent would be! He wondered what horrors awaited them out there, and about where they would land, if they landed at all. There was even the possibility, he thought, that they would fall forever—never to land or rest, never to settle—always travelling further and further away from the light, and from its source.

With a shudder, he covered his mouth with a hand and turned away. He thought he would be sick. He had to get away, to unsee the horrors he had seen and wipe them from his memory. To think was to question, and question Aziraphale did not—he only believed, as far as belief would take him, and would go no further.

***

Things were surprisingly normal after the Fall, given that they’d lost almost a third of their numbers. Aziraphale had gotten better at never thinking about it. It was just like... a nightmare, a silly fancy that he’d dreamed up to scare himself with.

He’d never gotten around to asking about the whole thing. Somehow he could never quite find the right moment, what with all the new happenings in heaven those days. Times were changing. Besides, people seemed to want to move on as quickly as possible. If there had been any mistakes made during that entire fiasco, it was no one’s wish to dwell on them.

(The sword, which was still stuck in its scabbard, remained tucked away in his private quarters. He preferred to keep it hidden behind a door, where he wouldn’t have to see it if he didn’t want to.)

The summons arrived in the form of a note slipped under the door to his quarters. Aziraphale sat down at the table which he had only just laid out for his evening meal, and unfolded it carefully to read it. It said that he was to present himself at Gabriel’s office as soon as possible, and to kindly bring the sword that had been assigned to him.

He stood up with a sigh, pushing the stool at his little table back in. If he hurried, he might still get back before his dinner was cold.

The cherubs at the front desk of the celestial tower let him through without comment, which he supposed meant they were expecting him. He took the golden elevator up, wandered through a few golden hallways smiling awkwardly at barely-remembered faces until he finally arrived at Gabriel’s door.

He knocked twice, then let himself in. Gabriel was standing by his desk, and staring pensively out the window which overlooked the courtyard below. He turned when he heard Aziraphale come in, and flashed him a wide smile.

“Great to see you, Aziraphale. How are things?”

“Oh—they’re going _splendidly_. I just started a new—”

“Wonderful, so glad to hear it,” said Gabriel, loudly enough that Aziraphale immediately stopped talking. “Okay, so I don’t know how much you’ve been told, but we’re getting ready for something new—a big push. ‘Creation’, it’s called. You’re being given a promotion. We want you to get down there and stand watch over the Lord’s newest project.”

“I... I’m sorry?”

“‘Creation’, I said,” Gabriel repeatedly impatiently, as though talking to an idiot.

“Sorry—I did catch that part. It was the other thing, the... er...” Aziraphale gestured helplessly to himself.

“Oh, the promotion? Yeah, well.” Gabriel shrugged, as if to give the impression that he didn’t know why, either. “Congratulations, Principality Aziraphale. You, uh, earned it.”

Aziraphale smiled again, awkwardly. It wasn’t clear whether a ‘thank you’ was expected, but Gabriel saved him from having to decide by barrelling onward.

“Okay, now that that’s out of the way. You brought the sword, right?”

“Oh, yes.” Aziraphale took it by the hilt, wiggling it until it came loose, then slid it free from the scabbard with one hard tug. The blade was still without shine, though there was the faintest suggestion of a deadly edge underneath all the grime.

Gabriel stared at him. “You never cleaned it?”

“Er.” Aziraphale found that he simply couldn’t explain. It didn’t feel like something he should have just miracled away, but since it was of supernatural origin, it was also terrifically resistant to all the scrubbings he’d tried to give it. He settled for looking a bit embarrassed. “Well. No.”

“Huh. Wouldn’t have thought of you as the sort to leave a job unfinished.” Gabriel snapped his fingers, and at once the blade burst into flames. Aziraphale yelped, nearly letting go, and just barely managed to avoid slicing off his own toes with his brand new self-cauterising knife. “That should take care of it for you. Anyway, we’ll be expecting you bright and early tomorrow, so do whatever you need to before then. Oh, and bring comfortable shoes—you’ll need them.”

“Right—of course.” Aziraphale had no idea what to do with the sword, which was still on fire. He held it at arms’ length and stared as the caked-on blood and dirt began to burn off, scoured away by holy flame, to reveal the silver of the blade below.

Had it always been that easy? He tilted his wrist to turn it from side to side, studying it in wonder. It had taken almost no effort for Gabriel to burn away the last traces that anything had ever happened, and soon, only he, Aziraphale, would ever know that the stain had been there.

He turned back to Gabriel. Gabriel was beginning to look impatient again, so instead of wasting any more time, he took a deep breath, and sheathed the sword. The flames helpfully put themselves out as he did so. That was a relief, although he wasn’t sure what would happen the next time he tried to pull it out. He nodded to Gabriel, who waved him away, and went out, shutting the door behind him.

The next morning, he went down to the main city square to present himself for duty. There were two other angels already waiting there. They were very tall, with very straight backs, and barrel-like chests. Aziraphale felt quite small and pathetic beside them.

One of them he recognised as Jophiel, with whom he had become acquainted during the war. Aziraphale offered him a bit of a smile, but was met with a blank look and a stony silence. Well, perhaps he wasn’t in much of a talking mood. There wasn’t any time to introduce himself to the other angel. Uriel was coming over, and he didn’t look like he was in the mood to play silly buggers with anyone.

Uriel saluted them, and they fell in line, saluting back. (Aziraphale’s was rather less crisp than it used to be, from lack of practice, but he made the effort.) Scowling, as though there were an infinite number of places he’d rather be than here, he walked down the ranks, giving them all a once-over and pausing to eye Aziraphale with slight distaste. For a moment he looked as if he wanted to say something, perhaps along the lines of _There must have been some kind of mistake.._. but subsequently decided to keep it to himself.

“Right, then,” he drawled. “At ease. We’ve been called here today because we’re receiving a new assignment. The Lord has constructed a brand new compound for Her latest creations, and we’re being sent to stand watch over it. She’s been having a grand old time coming up with all sorts of new creatures, and our job is to make sure that none of them are bothered by the servants of the Betrayer.”

Aziraphale put up his hand. Uriel glared at it, and then at him.

“Yes, Aziraphale?”

With a nervous smile, Aziraphale put the hand back down. “Yes, um. I had a question. These servants—are we, er, supposed to go round hunting for them, or...?”

Uriel looked down at his notes. “Aziraphale, Aziraphale... It says here that you’re to be stationed at the eastern gate, on guard duty.” He folded the notes back up, and tucked them into his pocket. “Thwart them if you see them, but I wouldn’t recommend taking the initiative to try and root them out from their nasty little hiding places. At least... not for _all_ of you.” He looked meaningfully at Aziraphale, and one of the other angels hurriedly turned a titter into a cough. “If you’ve settled your affairs up here, you can get a bit of a head start and present yourself for duty earthside. I believe Michael’s already set up shop downstairs, so you can report to him.”

Grateful for the opportunity to excuse himself, Aziraphale did just that. He heard them continuing to talk in low voices after he’d left, but didn’t bother looking back. Given how they treated him when he was there, he figured it wasn’t worth sticking around to find out what they had to say about him when he wasn’t.

The trip to Earth was relatively uneventful. He signed himself out at the gates, and then began the long descent down through the celestial spheres. Partway down, he had the fleeting thought that perhaps he should’ve waited for the others, even if they were going to be rude about him. It might still have been better than being alone with his thoughts.

Well, probably not, but it was such a long way to go, and so tremendously lonely. He closed his eyes as the wind whistled past his ears, and tried not to think of others who had made this same journey before him, but at a far greater speed and with much less control. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder if it had hurt—if perhaps they’d been able to use their wings to steer, or if they’d been purely at the mercy of momentum.

It was an awfully good thing he hadn’t fallen, Aziraphale decided. He didn’t think he’d have been much good at it, and that was just as well.

Eventually he came to land in a desert, which seemed quite endless in every direction until he spotted a towering structure off in the distance. God seemed to favour a certain brand of majesty in all of Her creations, which, if nothing else, made them easy to spot from far away. He headed over and found Michael inside, in conversation with a strange creature that sort of resembled an angel, except that it was wingless and unclothed. He hung around waiting until the strange creature had wandered off and then descended, landing gently in the clearing some feet away from Michael.

The sound of his most comfortable pair of sandals touching down in the dirt got Michael’s attention; he looked up at Aziraphale, and nodded a greeting.

“Hello, Aziraphale. I see you’ve received your marching orders. Got your flaming sword, then?“

“Oh, yes—right here,” said Aziraphale, giving it an apprehensive pat where it hung at his hip. (Fortunately, Michael didn’t ask him to pull it out and prove it.)

“Good, good. Well, the eastern gate is over yonder. I trust you’ve been briefed in full already?”

“Erm—” Aziraphale fidgeted. He wasn’t sure if what had happened with Uriel counted as a full briefing, so he hedged his bets. “More or less. Just... er... guard duty, is it?”

Michael frowned. “Partly, yes, but the idea is also that you’ll be perfectly positioned to root out the servants of the Betrayer at their source.” He looked down his nose at Aziraphale. “I trust you will take this responsibility seriously.”

“Of course,” said Aziraphale, with a sinking heart. _Oh dear._ Michael was still watching, though, so he put on a brave face. “You know me—I can root with the best of them. Demons, eh? Can’t stand the fellows! Haha. Er.”

“Good to hear it.” Michael’s words seemed agreeable enough, but his expression was enigmatic, and Aziraphale decided not to push his luck any further. He excused himself quickly, and tromped off to find his new post.

The area surrounding the eastern gate where he was to be stationed was pleasant enough. There was enough tree cover that it was shady in the afternoons, and a bit of a grassy ridge for him to sit on when he fancied a rest. It was a tad lonely—the humans couldn’t see him, so he could only have the other angels for company, and since they barely left their posts that effectively meant he had no one to talk to. There was a friendly little snake who dropped by to say hello once or twice, though Aziraphale didn’t think much of this until later.

On the other hand, it wasn’t so bad being alone with Creation. He spent many an afternoon observing the way the wind shook the tall grass, and marvelling at the restlessness of the tree boughs. He loved watching the animals go about their business, how the sky curved endlessly overhead, and even the black of night in which the stars could be seen. He counted them to pass the time; named them after long-lost friends, for they kept him company when the nights grew too long for comfort. Perhaps it went without saying, but She did have some awfully good ideas sometimes. He loved the Earth, every piece of Her new Creation, and passed his days not in ferreting out evildoers, but in rejoicing in the wonders of this new world.

The principle that nothing could last forever was relatively new, but Aziraphale found that in this new age it was being applied quite liberally. It wasn’t very long before he found himself standing atop the eastern gate, in conversation with a demon who might or might not have previously been a friendly little snake.

They stood there under the heavy skies, watching the first humans carve their way across the hostile dunes, until their figures had vanished over the horizon.

Then the demon who had called himself Crawley stretched languidly, and then peeked out from under the edge of Aziraphale’s snow-white wing.

“Well. That’s that, I suppose.” A raindrop landed on his nose; he wrinkled it. “Are you off, then?”

Aziraphale shrugged. He was out a sword, and probably a job, as well. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere to be.

“Don’t expect they’ll be needing me back just yet,” he said vaguely. “And you?”

The demon hesitated for a long moment. Aziraphale was not yet an expert at deciphering demonic expressions, but he might have guessed that Crawley was weighing his options. He wondered dubiously if this counted as having rooted out one of the Betrayer’s servants. Certainly he’d managed to locate the culprit behind it all, although nobody seemed to care much about that now.

Then the demon grinned. All of a sudden, Aziraphale noticed that he had the loveliest eyes. You’d never have guessed they belonged to a demon—apart from the peculiar colour and the general reptilian shape, of course. They were the sort of eyes, he felt, that made you feel as though you could get along with their owner.

That was a dangerous sort of thought to be having, so he hurriedly shoved it off his mental cliff. In the meantime, Crawley was still watching him, an amiable look on his face.

“You know what—I think I’ll hang around a bit longer,” he said, brightly. “Maybe see what happens.”

***

After that first truce atop the walls of Eden, they didn’t see each other for a while.

Aziraphale wondered what had happened to that demon afterwards. Probably recalled and rewarded for a job well done. On the other hand, Aziraphale wasn’t exactly expecting any commendations. All things considered, he was probably lucky to have gotten off with little more than a smack on the wrist.

His next assignment arrived not too long after the Eden incident. The missive was hand-delivered at mid-day by a grumpy cherub, and he read it in the canteen over his lunch break, alone. According to it, he was to be heaven’s agent on the ground, and go about enacting God’s will and generally spreading the good word. Aziraphale wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be a reward or a punishment. What it _did_ mean was being assigned physical equipment: a body to inhabit, a conceit which would allow him to interface more effectively with humans.

What should have been standard bureaucratic procedure soon metamorphosed into an all-consuming struggle. At first it was unbearably uncomfortable, going from an ethereal body to one that constantly prickled with sensations. It was hard to concentrate on anything with every nerve ending screaming every time he touched something, which was _all the time_. Over time, though, and with a lot of practice, he got better at filtering out the things that didn't matter, and focusing on the things that did. He even got used to the sensation of clothes that weren't heavenly robes, strange and scratchy as they were, which was good because he might've gotten some funny looks if he went around exposing himself all the time.

Being on Earth was just as much fun as it had been before—and even more so now that he had a body to enjoy it with. Life was wonderful: brighter and more vivid than he could ever have understood within the confines of an ethereal body. Everything was an experience. He quickly discovered the joy of food, the taste and texture of it, and most of all the wonderful fullness of sated hunger, which he could simply wish away when he spotted something else he wanted to try. He loved sunbathing, loved the gentle warmth of it on his skin (although it had to be said he didn’t enjoy the resulting sunburns quite as much). Of course it was a mere simulacrum of true life, but it was close enough to be enjoyed, which he did with enthusiasm. And it was made even better with company, which in the early days he found in abundance. Humans made for wonderful conversation, and they also made beautiful music, and poetry, and dance, and alcohol, and just generally filled with their brief existences with a brilliant variety of diversions which Aziraphale felt it was practically a sin not to partake in.

Not long after the Flood, though, things began to change. It used to be that he could visit a town once, come back two hundred years later, and still recognise most of the faces. Now, even the passing of fifty years was long enough to turn him into a complete stranger. It wasn’t all bad, of course. If he’d done his job, they’d all end up in the right place, so to speak. But that didn’t make it any less lonely, and one year, when Aziraphale came to Uruk and realised that what had once been a bustling metropolis was now all but abandoned, he came to the conclusion that he simply had to stop getting so attached to things. Human life worked on a vastly different time scale than he did, and there was no sense going about thinking things would be there tomorrow when they wouldn’t.

He was sitting in a crappy pub in Sumer, drinking some awful beer and thinking gloomily about all of this when a long shadow fell over him. Something prickled at the back of his neck, and without looking, he just _knew_.

“Begone, foul demon—oh.” He slumped back down over his drink listlessly. “It’s just you.”

“What d’you mean, ‘just me’?” said the demon, sounding wounded. “Rude of you, innit? Don’t you even remember my name?”

Aziraphale frowned. “Well, of course I do. It’s... Snakey,” he hazarded.

“ _Crawley_.” Despite the fact that Aziraphale had not extended any such invitation, the demon Crawley sat down beside him, and waved at the barmaid for a pint. Aziraphale thought about telling him to go sit somewhere else, but even that seemed like too much effort to be bothered with. Instead, he continued to stare glumly at the nasty brown liquid in his cup. Crawley gave him a knowing sideways glance. “Something on your mind, then?”

Aziraphale made a face. If even drinking had lost its charms, it had to be serious—but he wasn’t about to say that to a demon.

“I wouldn’t tell you, even if there was.”

“Go on, don’t be like that,” said Crawley bracingly. “Who else is offering to listen to your problems, I’d like to know. For that matter, who else would understand?”

Aziraphale found that he disliked Crawley very much at that moment, and unfortunately, the thing that he disliked the most was that Crawley was probably right.

“I—well—” Aziraphale blustered. “For one thing, I’ll have you know, I can call my head office whenever I like!”

Crawley didn’t bother dignifying that with an answer immediately, but his sceptical silence spoke volumes. He drained his cup all the way first, with apparent relish, then swivelled sideways so as to be able to address Aziraphale properly.

“And they answer, do they?” he said, silkily. “They care when you give them a ring?”

Aziraphale said nothing.

Crawley leaned in closer. His voice grew quieter, more conspiratorial. “Face it, angel—we’ve only got each other on this blasted planet, don’t we? Might as well make the most of it.”

“What do you... what do you _mean_ , ‘we’ve only got each other’?! We don’t talk—you don’t even know my name!”

Crawley looked at him steadily. “It’s Aziraphale,” he said.

Aziraphale’s mouth opened and shut a few times. Then he put down his cup shakily, nearly upsetting the whole thing across the bar, and shot to his feet. The thought of having any more to drink churned his stomach.

“Don’t,” he said coldly, “ever come and talk to me again.”

He left the demon sitting there alone at the bar, and went out into the street. Then he began to walk.

He walked, walked for days without rest, and didn’t stop until he’d reached the edge of the gulf. There, he peeled off his sandals and stepped into the water. It was pleasantly warm from the sun, and lapped gently at his ankles.

With eyes closed, he turned his face skyward, the heat of the sun high overhead prickling almost painfully into his skin. He couldn’t decide what was a greater source of shame: the fact that a demon had actually offered him a shoulder to cry on, or the fact that some tiny part of him had wanted to accept.

He’d spent too long on Earth, that was certain. It was turning his thoughts strange, complicating everything. For a moment he thought he should like to go back to heaven, and then immediately thought better of it. He remembered the glittering towers, the streets of polished alabaster, everything so clean and bright and glorious forever, and shuddered. No— he’d take his chances on Earth, after all. He’d just have to be stronger, that was all, and not fall for any silly little demonic tricks.

He stood in the water until the sun went down, and then got out and put his sandals back on, and started the long, weary trek back to the nearest settlement. Along the way, he resolved to get heads-down on his work, and stop spending so much time feeling sorry for himself. Evil never slept, or so he’d heard, and all those wiles? Well, they certainly weren’t going to thwart themselves.

***

Perhaps taking him at his word, the demon spent the next couple of centuries avoiding him entirely. Aziraphale did spot him in crowds, once or twice—mostly at pubs, carousing with the humans and probably tempting them into all sorts of pagan wickedness—but the demon never looked at him once, and typically vanished soon afterwards.

 _As it should be_ , thought Aziraphale, quite pointedly not wrestling with any lingering feelings of regret. A moment of weakness—that’s all it had been. Nothing that couldn’t be handled with some prayer and a spot of penance.

It had been a couple of months since he’d last received official communications. The heavenly bureaucracy was in full swing by this point, so Aziraphale already spent a non-zero amount of his time filling out compliance reports, but this was the first message to come the other way in some time.

He wasn’t really a fan of their methods. He was particularly tired of finding messages burnt into his toast; it made the crunch pattern quite uneven. Sometimes, he caught himself wondering how the other side did it. He didn’t have anyone he could’ve asked, but he guessed it couldn’t have been much better. After all, there was probably no such thing as an efficient bureaucracy on any plane of existence.

That morning, his breakfast had been toasting on a flat stone near the fire, and it smelled absolutely delightful. Then he went to flip it over, and nearly dropped the whole thing in shock. There was a message seared into the surface of the bread, in beautiful flowing script that wasn’t in a language any human could have understood: _Open a direct line and contact us immediately._

He read it over, and then sat back with a worried frown. Even the longest messages could usually fit on a single piece of bread, as long as they made the words small enough. That probably meant it was going to be complicated. Or important. Or—worst of all—both.

He finished his breakfast, then sighed, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work. It was necessary to clear out a space in the middle of the room, and unfortunately his personal quarters had gotten quite cluttered over the years. (He’d developed a habit of keeping a souvenir from each town he passed through, and they were starting to pile up.)

He located a bit of chalk, and began to sketch out the summoning circle in the middle of the floor, taking extra care to get all the little details right. Mistakes of any sort could lead to interference over the line, and the last thing he wanted was Gabriel yelling _Can you hear me now?_ while he was fumbling around on his hands and knees trying to fix it. He placed candles at regular intervals around the perimeter of the circle, and went round lighting each of them with a touch. Then, finally, he positioned himself at the head of the circle, hands clasped together as if in prayer, and tilted his face towards the ceiling.

“Er... hello. This is the Principality Aziraphale, checking in, as requested. Is, um, anyone there...?”

Unlike some of the other calls he’d tried to make over the years, this one connected right away. There was a soft ‘click’, and then a circle of light cascaded down from some unseen place, illuminating the room with a gentle glow.

Gabriel’s face appeared, floating in the middle of the beam of light, just above eye level.

“Aziraphale. So glad you could get in touch.” His smile, Aziraphale thought, looked unusually grim.

“Hello, Gabriel,” said Aziraphale, trying not to sound overtly nervous. “How are things up above?”

The image of Gabriel shook its head. “I’m afraid there’s no time for niceties. We have a new job lined up for you—something very important.”

He began to explain. Partway through, Aziraphale stopped him to fetch papyrus and quill, so he could take notes. It went on for quite some time. At the end of it Aziraphale stopped, and looked back over everything he’d written down with a sinking feeling. As he’d feared, it was both important _and_ complicated. Just his luck, really.

The image of Gabriel was looking directly at him. Aziraphale had the unsettling feeling that he was being measured, and found not particularly worthy. “Did you get all of that?” it asked him, sternly.

“I—I think so.” Aziraphale made an attempt at a smile. “So. Off to Nazareth, is it...?”

Gabriel nodded. “That’s where it all starts, anyway. Now. You’ve got a lot of angelic visitations lined up, so... better dust off the old heavenly robes. Don’t want to put the old side to shame, eh?” He chuckled at his own joke. “Give us another call once you have that wrapped up. I’ll have further instructions for you. And Aziraphale?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t mess this up.”

The light vanished, and the line went dead.

Not so much as a goodbye—Aziraphale supposed he must really have been busy. Lost in thought, he went round slowly, putting out all the candles with another touch.

A change of scenery wouldn’t be so bad, although he couldn’t say he was looking forward to the journey. Ever since that one incident with Balaam and the donkey, the whole equine genus hadn’t seemed too fond of him. He supposed word got around, somehow. (It hadn’t even been Aziraphale’s fault—but try explaining _that_ to a horse.)

The next morning, Aziraphale went out and booked a seat in a travelling caravan that was headed down the coast. Better huddled in the back of a wagon than attempting to mount an animal that hated your guts, he figured, even if it was slower. He did a couple of drive-through blessings and one minor miracle along the way to pass the time, and arrived at his first destination a week later.

He paid his fare and said his goodbyes, hopped off the caravan into the dusty road, and almost immediately spotted a most unwelcome figure just a little ways off, deep in conversation with a beggar by the side of the street.

“You!” said Aziraphale, unhappily.

Crawley stopped talking to the beggar at once, looking up and around in astonishment. Apparently, he hadn’t been expecting another ethereal being in the neighbourhood. When he spotted Aziraphale, he grinned.

“Yes, me,” he said cheerfully, strolling on over. He came to a stop nearby, putting his hands on his hips. “Well, well, well. Didn’t realise you’d be in my neck of the woods, angel. You should’ve written ahead, I could’ve made up the guest room for you.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Aziraphale grumpily, starting to walk. He didn’t have a particular destination in mind, but in the absence of any alternative, ‘anywhere but here’ was still an improvement.

“So,” said Crawley, immediately falling into step beside Aziraphale, “what brings you here?”

Aziraphale hadn’t spoken to anyone for non-work reasons in months, but this, of course, had no bearing on the fact that he actually answered. “Well—if you must know, I’m here on official business. Something _terribly_ important.” He grimaced. “And now I suppose you’re going to rush off and tell your side all about it, eh?”

Crawley shrugged. “Not really. I’m off the clock right now. Hey—can I come watch?”

“Absolutely not!” said Aziraphale, appalled. “ _Completely_ out of the question. I shouldn’t even be talking to you, don’t know why I bother...” He trailed off into silence.

“Right, right,” said Crawley. He didn’t seem at all put out by Aziraphale’s rapid mood swings; in fact, it rather looked as though he was enjoying himself. “So, where exactly are you headed, then?”

Aziraphale pursed his lips and said nothing, feeling that he’d disclosed quite enough already. The demon eyed him, slyly.

“Well, look—it’s been a while since we’ve had a chat. Why don’t we go somewhere and catch up, maybe sample some of the local fare? You _don’t_ ,” he added quickly, seeing that Aziraphale was about to interrupt and give him another piece of his mind, “have to tell me anything about your new job. All right?“

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. The bumpy ride down the coast had taken quite a lot out of him, and it would’ve been a lie to say he wasn’t getting peckish.

“What sort of fare are we talking about?”

“Oh, you know,” said Crawley, with a casual wave of the hand. “Quail roasted in honey and cumin, maybe. Jug of pomegranate wine. Goat cheese with figs and nuts in. I’m friendly with the cooks in one of the posh households, you see. Sure they wouldn’t mind whipping a little something up if I told them I had a friend come in from out of town.”

Aziraphale looked at him in horror. “But that would be _stealing_!”

For a moment or two, Crowley looked as though he was actually taking this under consideration. Then he shrugged. “Eh, well.” He smiled beatifically. “Just think of it as teaching ‘em the value of a sestertius. Get very out of touch with the struggle of the common man, living the way they do. We’re doing them a favour, really, if you look at it like that.”

Aziraphale was not sure if he found this line of argument convincing. On the other hand, he had a weakness for cheeses, and pomegranate wine was a rare find, especially out of season. He bit his lip.

“Oh, all _right_ , then—but I can’t let you go stealing from them. We’ll have to go round and replenish their pantry afterwards. As long as they’re none the wiser...” He looked at Crawley, hesitantly. “That should make up for it, wouldn’t you say?”

Crawley gave him a big grin.

“Hey, you’re the angel,” he said, happily. “You would know, right?”

Aziraphale dearly hoped that was true.

***

After lunch and a surprisingly animated conversation about the aggravating quirks of their respective bosses, they parted ways. Aziraphale waited until he was quite sure that Crawley was gone before he set about his work. Having a truce for a spot of lunch was all right, but he wasn’t naive enough to think he wouldn’t be followed on official business.

It took a while of knocking on doors and asking polite questions to find the place he was looking for. When he’d found it, he staked out a nice shady section of the yard, and settled down patiently to wait. It seemed like it’d be best to do it at night, so there wouldn’t be any bystanders. Last thing he needed was hecklers poking fun while he was trying to come over serious.

An opportunity presented itself in the evening. His target emerged from her house with a pitcher, probably intending to fetch some water from the well. It seemed as good a time as any. Spreading his arms dramatically, Aziraphale stepped out from the shadows, and began to speak.

“Hail, thou that art highly favoured,” he said importantly. “Blessed art thou among women.”

Then he waited. When she didn’t respond, he blinked at her, and then gave his halo a sharp tap. (It didn’t fit quite like it used to; he suspected he might have sat on it at some point, on one of his various cross-continental moves.) “Hello? Is this thing on? Oh, for _pity’s_ sake—”

“Push off, tosser,” said Mary, sounding quite bored. Just then, the halo finally sputtered on, casting a glow over the whole scene and illuminating his recently-laundered heavenly robes. At once she cast aside the pitcher she had been carrying, and threw herself down upon the ground. “Oh, Gabriel, holiest of holies!” she cried, reverently.

“Er, yes,” said Aziraphale, with a silent apology to the real Gabriel. “Yes, that’s me, haha! Good old Gabriel. Right. I’ve, erm, come to deliver a message. Here, you needn’t stay like that—let me help you up...” He set Mary back on her feet, and dusted her off a bit. She gaped as he stepped back, resuming his previous regal stance, and cleared his throat a bit to make sure his voice had the proper sonorous timbre. “Ahem. Fear not, for thou hast found favour with God. Thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and—and bring forth a son. Called Jesus—this bit’s important. He shall be very great, and called the Son of the Highest, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” He was pretty sure he’d messed up some of the wording, but thought that he’d at least kept the gist of it. (Hopefully no one was taking notes.)

By this time, Mary had stopped looking quite so astonished; in fact, she had exchanged her shock for something that looked a lot more like annoyance. “You’re joking, right?”

This was something Aziraphale hadn’t prepared for. “I—I’m sorry?”

She scowled, and crossed her arms. “Don’t see how I can be having a son. _Or_ a daughter. Joseph’s not going to be too happy about this, oh no. You _know_ how important it is to blokes to be your first, and then here’s you, coming out of nowhere and saying I’m to conceive and whatnot... well, I’m not having it. You take that message right back to wherever you came from, and give it to some other poor girl.”

“But you must know that—I mean, we’re not _asking_ you to. I’m just giving you a heads-up.” Aziraphale spread his hands, plaintive. “Couldn’t you, oh, I don’t know... let this go? Just this once?”

When all she did was glare at him, Aziraphale sighed.

“Oh, all right, then, go and call him out,” he said wearily. “I’ll tell him the same thing—then at least you won’t have any misunderstandings between the two of you.”

She went inside and fetched Joseph, who was quite cranky until he realised exactly who it was who’d come calling in the middle of the night.

“O blessed Gabriel, servant of our Lord on high,” he murmured, prostrating himself on the ground.

“Yes, yes,” said Aziraphale, a bit testily. Here he was schlepping it on the ground, sweltering in piles of heavenly robes, and who was it got all the credit, he’d like to know? He repeated his message to Joseph, who stared at him with mouth hanging open for nearly half a minute. At last, he simply shrugged.

“Well... that’s all right, innit?” He wiggled his eyebrows at Mary, who blushed. “Was getting a bit tired of waiting ‘till marriage, anyway.”

Aziraphale found that he was really starting to fancy a nap. “Yes, quite. Congratulations to the both of you,” he said, hurriedly, and then sidled off before he had to witness any more of human mating rituals.

As he went down the street, he pulled his halo off, giving it a worried look. It had really taken a beating over the years; he wondered if he’d be allowed to ask for a replacement, for wear and tear. Quite distracted trying to bend it back into shape, he bumped headfirst into Crawley who was coming the other way, and nearly dropped the halo with a shriek.

When he’d finally gotten his breath break, he whirled on the demon in a huff. “Have you _ever_ considered watching where you’re going?”

Laughing, Crawley held up his hands. “My apologies,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “So. Humans, eh?”

“Yes. Wonderful creatures,” Aziraphale snapped.

At that, Crawley raised his eyebrows. “Why not tell me how you really feel?” He paused, and then added brightly, “Over dinner. At the local tavern. My treat.”

Aziraphale was not, at that moment, in the best of moods—he was boiling alive in his robes, and he was quite certain he was about to get a note telling him off for bungling the message to Mary. Once again, he rounded on the demon in a fit of pique.

“ _No_! I won’t fall for that again. Oh, you may try to tempt me with your wicked wiles, serpent, but I know you for what you are! Begone, foul spirit, and trouble me no longer!”

It was too dark to be certain, but Aziraphale was surprised by what looked like a flash of emotion in Crawley’s face. It wasn’t shock that Aziraphale actually had a spine, nor was it rage at being denied evildoing—but something else, something quite different.

Then it was gone. Crawley shrugged.

“Suit yourself, then,” he said, and vanished before Aziraphale could change his mind.

That night, Aziraphale ate alone. He took his meal with the grim determination of one who has resolved not to let anyone know he was lonely. Even struck up conversation with some of the locals, not that they had any interesting to say.

Anyway, he was being ridiculous. It was stupid to feel lonely in the middle of a crowded tavern, surrounded by people who were perfectly nice and friendly and didn’t understand him at all, because they simply couldn’t. What more could an angel ask for? He let the humans buy him another round, toasted to everyone’s fortune and good health, and didn’t bother pointing out they’d all be dead in a hundred years anyway.

Afterwards he went back to his room, put out all the lamps, and lay down by himself in the dark—just waiting for morning, when he would have to get up and do it all over again.

***

The jobs just kept on coming. They sent him to talk to some shepherds in the fields, and for some reason head office insisted on a whole choir being present for it. That had required a few hours of rehearsal beforehand, because somebody or other kept missing their cue and ruining the whole effect. After that he had to hie it over to Bethlehem to observe a distressingly unhygienic birth in a stable, just so that he could bless the red and squalling baby Jesus.

He was quite sweet, actually, Aziraphale thought, once his extremely hassled earthly parents had finally managed to put him to sleep in a manger and there was a bit of peace and quiet. And that was despite the fact that he looked very much like a prune that had left out in the sun too long. Aziraphale hoped he’d grow out of that by the time he hit puberty.

At any rate, things were only getting started. He’d been informed that he was attached to the case on a semi-permanent basis, and was to keep watch over the boy for the next couple of decades. He wasn’t new to guardian angelship in general, but it was the first time he’d been so heavily involved in the raising of a single child.

It wasn’t direct influence that was expected of him, though; more along the lines of the odd miracle now and then, whenever it was needed. Once, Mary forgot she’d set him down somewhere, and the baby Jesus had promptly used his newfound freedom to take a headfirst tumble down two flights of stairs. Might have done quite serious damage, too, if Aziraphale hadn’t caught him first. She’d later found him at the bottom of the steps, unharmed and gurgling happily, and had simply chalked the whole incident up to maternal forgetfulness.

Under Aziraphale’s watchful eye, the baby Jesus successfully survived the foibles of infancy and became a strapping young boy. Aziraphale rather enjoyed this phase of his life—it was great fun watching the lad go into the temples and argue with the priests about ethics and the rule of law. Later into his adulthood he started getting some funny ideas, but hey, if he wanted to go traipsing around the countryside preaching about kindness and generosity to the poor, Aziraphale could hardly complain.

He did worry, however, when the lad decided a period of fasting and meditation in the desert was just what was needed for his spiritual growth. In Aziraphale’s opinion it sounded like a great way to die of starvation and never have anyone find the body, but nevertheless, he tagged along; he wouldn’t have been much of a guardian angel, otherwise.

After a couple of hours of travel, they settled in a little clearing, near the shade of a rocky outcropping. The sun came up and went down again, and darkness fell over the land. The lad was seated cross-legged in the dirt, and had been praying and meditating for the past hour. Aziraphale was quite bored. He wished he’d thought to bring along a crossword puzzle or something.

The back of his neck prickled suddenly, and he stiffened, looking up. Just barely visible in the shadows of dusk, an all-too-familiar figure was approaching. As it did so, it gave him a little wave, which Aziraphale did not return.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed instead, when it was close enough to hear him.

Crawley had the grace to look a bit embarrassed.

“Erm. Not sure, really. All they told me was to come up here and have a word with him.” He beamed. “So. Mind getting out of the way, then?”

“Yes, actually, I would mind!” With an awkward and not particularly practised movement, Aziraphale unsheathed the sword at his hip, which probably hadn’t been touched in over a decade. Thankfully, it still had some flame in it, which made it much more awe-inspiring. Crawley took a quick step back as it flared on.

“Come on, now,” he said, and Aziraphale was both stunned and gratified to hear the concern in his voice. “There’s no need for that, all right? I just need to have a chat with him. Enough to say that I’d done it and then I can just check it off my list. Okay? I’m not going to hurt him or anything.”

“And who would trust _you_ , serpent?” said Aziraphale, who was getting quite into the swing of things.

“I dunno,” said Crawley, in a slightly forlorn voice. “You? Maybe?”

Momentarily forgetting to sound impressive, Aziraphale stared at him. “Me? Why _me_?”

“Well, you did before.” This time, Crawley even sounded a little hurt.

“Well—that was—I just—” Aziraphale faltered. Then, all at once, the fight went out of him. “Look. I can’t just... let you go ahead, can I? It’s just not right. It’d be like—like aiding and abetting, or something!”

“Why not? I’m not even asking you to leave. You can listen in if you like. Pick up some useful intel about my methods, I’m sure your side would love _that_.”

Aziraphale had to admit, that did sound like something that would look good on a biweekly report. He hesitated. “Well...”

Crawley held up his hands again, perhaps trying to demonstrate that he was unarmed. Not that that meant much, coming from a demon, but—it was something.

“It’s just talking. All right?” he said carefully. “I just need to talk to him.”

Feeling rather as though he might be making a mistake, Aziraphale sheathed his sword again with a frown. “Oh—all _right_.” He held up a finger in warning. “But only talking! If you try any funny business—”

“I know, I know,” said Crowley, and sighed the sigh of the greatly-maligned. He waved a hand over himself, and his form shimmered in the air, slowly materialising into physical reality. Aziraphale noticed with interest that he had not elected to make his appearance particularly demonic. In fact, he looked more or less as he always did. He supposed Crawley must have had his own favourite form to take, just as Aziraphale did.

Perhaps sensing the disturbance in the air, the lad opened his eyes. Then he opened them wider.

“Demon!” he murmured, and dragged himself backwards through the sand, away from the figure.

A smile wound its way across Crawley's face.

“Call me Crawley,” he said in a friendly voice, sidling around so as to plop himself down in the sand. The man opposite him leaned back a little, but that only made Crawley smile wider. “Listen—you’ve got to be starving. Why not miracle yourself up some bread? Have a bite to eat.”

The young Jesus drew himself up in an outrage.

“Man does not live by bread alone, but by—”

“Riiight, right. Thought you might say that,” said Crawley languidly, now resting his chin on one hand. He looked quite amused. “Very lonely out here, though, isn’t it? Let’s talk for a bit, it’ll help pass the time.”

“And why should I listen to _you_ , deceiver?”

Crawley must have been used to that sort of thing because he didn’t react, didn’t even flinch, but Aziraphale felt the strangest pang of mislaid guilt anyway. Apropos of nothing, he suddenly recalled the jug of pomegranate wine they had shared, some thirty-odd years ago. It had been surprisingly good, though Aziraphale wasn’t sure now whether that had been the wine itself, or the company he’d shared it with. Food, he thought, always tasted better with company.

Inexplicably miserable, he hesitated for a moment, and then crept a little closer to settle himself down on the ground as well—not choosing to be closer to one or the other, but somewhere in between the two. Crawley didn’t turn his head to look, but his eyes tracked Aziraphale’s movement across the clearing, all the way until he’d sat down.

Jesus was watching him suspiciously. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.” Turning his eyes back to the lad, Crawley smiled again, disarmingly. “A bit of talking never hurt anyone,” he said, brightly. “Now. Ever been to Chang’an?”

Still looking wary, the lad slowly shook his head. Crawley rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Great. We can all go. I know a little place where they’ve got the most delicious fried pheasant rolls.” He saw Jesus opening his mouth to complain and added quickly, “Keep fasting if you want, I couldn’t care less. But _I’m_ getting takeout, if you don’t mind.”

He snapped his fingers, and they vanished. The clearing which had previously contained one physical being and two ethereal ones was now deserted.

Much, much later—when Crawley had finally reached the end of his list of must-see global tourism sites—they popped back into existence in their little clearing in the desert. The darkness was beginning to lift, and it appeared that the sun would soon rise.

While the other two regained their bearings, Crawley lifted his takeout, which was wrapped in bamboo leaves, apparently inspecting it for any leaks that may have sprung up in transit. Aziraphale sat down heavily on a boulder, leaning forward onto his knees. Translocation had never been his strong suit; too many trips in quick succession could make him terribly sick.

Seemingly satisfied that his food had survived the journey, Crawley turned back to the young Jesus. “You sure you don’t want any of that, then?” he said, casually. “World’s there for the taking, you know. Just say the word, and it’s yours.”

The lad looked as though he was struggling to digest quite a lot of information in a very short time. He looked up towards the gradually brightening sky, where a canvas of pale stars winked down at him, and thought for a long moment.

“It was... very interesting,” he said, slowly, as Aziraphale held his breath. Then he shook his head. “But I believe that my work remains here.”

Somehow, Crawley didn’t look at all perturbed by this. “Yeah, all right,” he said, far too agreeably. “Well, then—it’s been fun, kid. See you on the flip side.”

Without another word, he popped out of existence. The silence he left behind in his wake was palpable, and even Jesus himself seemed a little cheerless to find himself all alone in the dark once more. He sat back down in the dirt, but instead of returning to his prayers, he reached down and began to trace vague shapes in the dust with a fingertip. He seemed to be deep in thought.

Aziraphale looked at him, and then sighed. He waved a hand over himself, materialising into reality, and then approached the lad, holding out a loaf of bread that had been hastily miracled out of the surrounding rock formation.

“Here,” he said, kindly, as Jesus glanced up, with a complete lack of surprise at his sudden appearance. “You’ve passed the tests that were laid out for you. Eat, now, and rejoice.”

This time, Jesus accepted the proferred food without complaint. He ate with relish, and drank also, from the cup of clear water which Aziraphale produced from a sleeve. Finally, with his thirst and hunger sated, he returned to idly doodling shapes in the sand. Every now and then he would glance towards Aziraphale, as though there was something he wished to say, but he wasn’t sure that he should. Patiently, Aziraphale tilted his head towards him.

“What is it, my dear?”

“He... well.” Jesus put his chin on his hand, and heaved a bit of a sigh, staring off into the distance. “He... didn’t seem all that bad... did he?”

Aziraphale sat down beside him, heavily.

“No. He really didn’t.” And then, more quietly, mostly to himself, he added, “—That’s the whole problem, isn’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“Oh... nothing. Just talking to myself.” He sighed as well, and then looked up, hopefully. “Do you think you’ve had enough of starving yourself yet? I’d love if we could get back to civilisation.”

Jesus smiled.

“I think I’ll stay a bit longer,” he said. “Not quite finished with what I came to do.”

Somehow, Aziraphale had known that was what he would say. “All right, then. Well—you know where to find me. I’ll be back for you later.”

He snapped his fingers and vanished, returning himself to the world of the ethereal, and his long, lonely desert vigil.

***

Three years later, Aziraphale wandered the streets of Jerusalem in a daze.

He had only been gone for a couple of days. An urgent miracle had to be performed in Bethany, they’d said. No one else available. As heaven’s main field agent, it had to be him. Aziraphale wondered how much of that was really true, and how much of this had been planned. He remembered with bitterness the grim look that Gabriel had worn, on the day he’d received this assignment all those decades ago.

They never did tell him anything. (You’d think he’d have gotten used to it by now.)

He pressed his hands to his face, hard, indenting the borrowed flesh of his physical body inward until it ached, and willed himself to keep going. The press of people thinned a little near the outskirts of town, and it became easier to walk. His feet carried him ever onwards, weaving along a muddy path which had already been churned up by countless footsteps before him. He stumbled over a shard of exposed rock in the ground, and when he caught himself, he noticed flecks of crimson speckling the dirt, scattered at intervals. As he reached a hand towards them, dim voices filtered through the stupor.

“Only getting what he deserves,” someone nearby murmured.

“Poor fellow,” said another. “Quite mad, I expect, and now— _this_.”

Aziraphale pulled his hand back abruptly. He couldn’t think. He got back to his feet, and forced them to move. As he came over a little knoll in the road he raised his face to the sun, and _there_ —stark against the brilliance of the setting sun were the silhouette of three crosses, with a thin crowd gathered at their base. So it was true. Neither caring about the strange looks people shot him nor their curious whispers, he broke into a run.

He hadn’t even gotten halfway there when something tackled him hard from the side, bowling him to the ground. Together they fell, head over heels into the mottled grass by the side of the road, and had a brief scuffle which Aziraphale roundly lost.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” hissed a voice—so familiar, too familiar, he couldn’t bear it. Crawley was sitting on him to pin him down, holding his wrists above his head, which turned out to be a jolly good idea because otherwise Aziraphale might have punched him. “You can’t just go running up there, they’ll murder you. What are you going to do—miracle him free?”

“Let me go, I have to—you don’t _understand_ —” Aziraphale struggled with all his might, but Crawley was stubborn and refused to be thrown. His head throbbed with some unknown pain, and he was barely warding off the terrible urge to scream. He’d watched over the boy for so many years, decades, and all—for _this_? It was... it was _not_... senseless, pointless, meaningless, or any of a thousand other terrible words he could have put to it.

It was... _ineffable_.

It was a complete and utter devastation.

Crawley was staring down at him as if he’d gone mad, which was probably not strictly untrue. “Not until you promise you’re not going to do anything stupid,” he said, seriously.

With glazed eyes, Aziraphale looked up at him—and then past him, his eyes lolling back in his head to take in the sky far beyond. It was so clear. It had no right being so clear on a day like this. There ought to be clouds or rain, a sign or portent— _some_ kind of tiny, infinitesimal little indication that an Enormous Mistake was being made. What was the point of being the son of God if you couldn’t even convince a few weather systems to come out for your memorial? he thought hysterically, and began to laugh. Crawley took him by the shoulders, and gave him a harsh shake. He was trembling, Aziraphale noticed—and then realised it was actually himself that was trembling, and that Crawley was absorbing it by holding on to him.

“ _Angel_. Come on.” Crawley leaned in closer, pressing his forehead hard against Aziraphale’s, until all Aziraphale could see were the yellows of his eyes filling his vision. “Get it together. _Please_.”

Aziraphale stopped laughing. He looked into Crawley’s eyes, into his face, until he had stopped shaking, too, until the hysteria that had seized his body had relinquished its grip.

Then he squeezed his eyes shut, and gave a very slight nod.

Still wary, but apparently deciding to trust him, Crawley let go, drawing himself back and up off Aziraphale to sit back on his heels. Aziraphale pushed himself upright, out of the dirt, swaying slightly as though dizzy. He opened his mouth to say something, but then stopped. Something was happening—they had both felt it.

They whirled around to face the hill upon which the cross had been planted, and gaped up at it as the feeling grew stronger, more oppressive. Crawley’s eyes were wide with fear and he was trying to say something, but Aziraphale couldn’t hear it; a savage wind had risen around them, ripping away all of Crawley’s words. Without thinking, he flung arms around Crawley’s head, then pulled him down to shield him from the violence of the gale. They crumpled to the ground once more, with Aziraphale lying almost on top of him, the wind battering mercilessly at his back and shoulders. It hurt, but at least he knew it wouldn’t kill him; he couldn’t have said the same for Crawley.

And then, through all the noise and chaos and confusion, he _felt_ it—the same way as one might sense the snuffing out of a candle, in a cold and dark room. One moment he was there, the next he wasn’t. Just as suddenly as it had come, the wind died down around them, dissipating into nothingness. He let go of Crawley, and then turned back towards the hill, his heart sinking in his chest. It was over. The boy had breathed his last.

He sat there in the dust for a while—not moving, just staring. He was dimly aware of passers-by whispering about the two strange men sitting in the dirt by the side of the road, but couldn’t find it in himself to care.

He heard a soft cough from behind him. It took several seconds and a monumental effort for him to look back at its source. Crawley’s face was smudged with dirt, and his hair was strewn all over his face. He looked quite wild, and Aziraphale might have laughed if he wasn’t so utterly, utterly drained.

When he saw that Aziraphale had turned to look at him, Crawley offered him a weak smile. “Let me buy you a drink,” he said.

Aziraphale turned away again. He put his head down on his knees and mumbled something.

Crawley leaned a bit closer. “Sorry?”

Aziraphale didn’t move. Every word was an exertion. “Not today.” His fingers twitched in the dirt, curling gently inwards into fists. “But... someday.”

He felt something brush his hair, the gentlest of touches, and for a moment thought it must have been Crawley—but when he raised his head to look, Crawley had his hands folded neatly in his lap. He supposed it had been the breeze.

Again, Crawley smiled.

“I'll be holding you to that,” he said, lightly.

***

They were getting nowhere fast. To be fair, Aziraphale wasn’t sure if either of them were really trying. Things might have been different if there’d been a bit more fanfare about it, but with the battle still raging all around them and elsewhere, they were hardly the centre of attention.

There were a couple of onlookers, of course: their respective squires, both quite bored, a smattering of the wounded, and about half a flock of soggy chickens. Apart from that, though, it was just him and Crowley, shin-deep in a bog at mid-day, banging uselessly on each other’s steel shells with their swords. The sun was blazing at the peak of the sky and Aziraphale was baking alive in his armour. He was ever so tired. Truth be told, he hadn’t felt quite himself since the whole thing in Jerusalem, about five hundred years ago.

Grimacing at the thought of what Gabriel might say if he tried to apply for leave because of something that had happened over five centuries ago, he half-heartedly parried an equally half-hearted thrust from his opponent, and then fell back to a safe distance.

“TAKE THAT, SELF-RIGHTEOUS FOOL!” Crowley hollered at the top of his lungs, only to add in his normal voice, “Here—can we stop for a bit? I’m completely wiped out.”

Aziraphale sucked in a deep breath and bellowed, “EVIL SHALL NEVER TRIUMPH, SO LONG AS I LIVE! Yes, that sounds like an _excellent_ idea to me.”

He popped open the visor on his helmet, panting slightly from exertion and from all the yelling. Meanwhile, Crowley stabbed his sword into the sodden ground so it would hold itself up, and just took his whole helmet off, tucking it under his arm.

For a while there was no sound but laboured breathing, the buzzing of gnats over the stagnant water, and the noise of chickens squabbling over a bit of food. Aziraphale hoped he didn’t look half as miserable as he felt, because how he felt was pretty damn miserable indeed. People were watching, and he didn’t want to let the old side down.

He saw a cheerful look cross Crowley’s face, as though he’d just thought of something clever, and immediately got a sense of foreboding.

“Listen—I’ve got an idea.”

“Don’t start with that nonsense again,” Aziraphale said, in a warning tone.

Crowley grinned. “No, no, tell you what. I’ll let you have this one.”

Aziraphale resisted the urge to roll his eyes, seeing as it wouldn’t have been very angelic. “Oh, you will, will you?”

“ _Yes_ , actually.” He watched as Crowley raked a hand back through his sodden hair to get it out of his eyes, then blew out a weary breath. “I’m sick of clomping around in this armour in the damp and wet, anyway, it’s giving me blisters. Just make it look convincing. Though—don’t _actually_ kill me, all right? I’ve got to be up in Constantinople next week, and I don’t have the time to be dealing with a discorporation.” He shifted his weight uncomfortably; there was a squelching sound as one steel boot was extracted from the mud with great strain. Almost as an aside he added, “Heard they’re just finishing up a bloody great cathedral, or something like that—got to go and deal with the fallout.”

“You’re mad,” said Aziraphale, in awed tones. Though the fact that he was actually considering it probably made him just as mad. “Why would you do that, then?”

“Why?” Crowley looked at him strangely, and then barked out a laugh. “Well... because you’ll owe me next time, obviously. Why else?”

He winked at Aziraphale, and then put his helmet back on, which hid his face from view. Still staring at him, Aziraphale got the strangest feeling he wasn’t being entirely honest.

Then again, he was also very, _very_ tired.

With a sigh, he put the visor back down on his helmet with a ‘clunk’.

“Well... all right, then,” said Aziraphale, and swung his sword.

***

Unexpectedly, owing Crowley one didn’t turn out to be all that bad.

Even being a demon, he never asked for all that much. A little temptation here, a spot of mischief there—that was as far as he went. And as long as Aziraphale kept acting terribly put upon whenever he asked, he never expected more. As far as arrangements went, it was quite convenient.

In Scotland, Aziraphale discovered a worrying talent for temptation. It had been all too easy to plant the suggestion in that clan leader’s head. As it turned out, his belief system was very flexible when it came to the idea of taking someone else’s cattle and calling it his own. And then after that, he’d got caught— _obviously_ , since no evil deed could go unpunished—and that had caused quite a fuss.

The fuss was followed by the practical application of diplomacy—which may or may not have been aided by nighttime visions of angelic strangers going on and on about what a terrific thing peace was and how dreadfully dull it was to keep fighting all the time—eventually resulting in a wonderful marriage alliance that saw the clans stronger and more united than ever before. (Since Crowley never specified what was to happen after the theft, Aziraphale had assumed it was his prerogative.)

A job well done, Aziraphale thought. He marked one temptation off his list, and gave himself a pat on the back.

By the time he’d got back to England, old Shakespeare’s tragedies were really starting to take off. On numerous occasions he thought of giving Crowley a call to see if he was in the mood for culture, but could never seem to find the right time to ask. Othello came out, and then Lear, and each time he saw that they were playing at the Globe he thought of Crowley, and dithered a little more.

It was more than a century later that he finally broke. Someone at head office must have been jockeying for a promotion, and had started paying more attention to the bookkeeping. _Apparently_ , reducing a sinfully overdone filet mignon to a perfect medium rare didn’t count as a ‘legitimate business reason’ for a miracle. Aziraphale disagreed, of course, but up there had their own standards for that sort of thing. At any rate, he was sick of bureaucracy, sick of having to explain himself, and he really just wanted to talk to someone who wouldn’t spend the whole time looking down their nose at him.

So—Crowley. The only problem was, he had no idea where his counterpart had got himself to. For the past couple of decades they'd both seemed to be based in London, so it hadn’t even occurred to him that Crowley might be elsewhere. But he wasn’t at any of his usual hangouts in the East End, or anywhere else in London for that matter, and Aziraphale had reached the end of a very short list of ideas.

Then he heard about a little spot of bother over in Paris—riots, social and political upheaval, all sorts of happenings that indicated potential demonic activity. It seemed as good a place as any to start looking, so he put on his best suit, and crossed the channel.

Not too long afterwards, wearing a decidedly less posh outfit, he exited the Bastille with Crowley by his side. There was quite a lot of excitement going on, but fortunately no one seemed to be paying them any attention.

As they passed the rowdy masses howling for blood, it occurred to Aziraphale to ask the question which had been on his mind for the past little while.

“I hope you don’t mind me mentioning it, but—I was just wondering—what, exactly, have you done to your hair?”

Stepping neatly around a puddle of some unidentified bodily fluids in the street, Crowley turned to him with a withering look.

“Get with the times, angel. It's _fashionable_.”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, nodding slowly. “You look like a very fashionable little dog. Like, the kind you might see sitting in the lap of one of those poor women.”

“I do _not_ ,” Crowley snapped, but then looked a bit uncertain. Aziraphale thought suddenly that it was a good thing he was there to help set Crowley straight whenever he started chasing another silly fad. He somehow got the feeling that the next time he saw Crowley, he might just be sporting a new ‘do.

Behind them, in the square, the guillotine made another terrible noise, and the crowd roared. Aziraphale winced, and sped up a little.

Despite the turbulent times, the cafe he had in mind remained miraculously open. Out of habit, Aziraphale held the door open for Crowley. Inside, one of the serving girls ran up, looking anxious.

“Monsieur Fell! You are safe?”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, looking at her in surprise. “I’m quite safe. Did you, er—”

“We saw you going down the street a few hours ago! Madame said—she said—” The girl’s lip quivered, and then she wailed, “She said we might never see you again!”

As Crowley hastily turned a snigger into a cough, Aziraphale went quite red, offering her his handkerchief. “Right, yes. Well. Thankfully, as you can see, my head remains, let us say, quite firmly affixed to my body. Just needed to—er—get a change of clothes.” He cleared his throat. “Now. One table for me and my acquaintance here, please.”

Crowley was still stifling his laughter as they sat down.

“Oh, shut up,” muttered Aziraphale, but not with any real bite in his voice. He waved another one of the serving girls over. “Excuse me—could you bring us a bottle of white, please? Thank you, my dear.”

Crowley stopped laughing long enough to give him a scandalised look.

“Excuse _me_ , but who exactly has _wine_ with _crepes_?”

“Someone who is celebrating not being decapitated, that’s who,” said Aziraphale, a little sourly. Then he sighed. “You know, you really missed out on old Petronius’s digs. Absolutely _scrumptious_. Seafood’s all got pollution in it nowadays, but back then, you could get it _really_ fresh.”

“Oh, for—” Crowley rolled his eyes. “That was, what, nearly seventeen centuries ago?” He drummed his fingers on the table. “You’ve missed out on a fair few of my favourites too, you know, if we’re going down that route.”

“Have I? Well, then.” Leaning back in his chair, Aziraphale studied Crowley, then shrugged delicately. “We’ll just have to keep each other appraised of all the best restaurants from now on, won’t we?” He waited until the serving girl had finished filling his glass, and then picked it up, giving it a light swirl to watch the light sparkle off the surface of the liquid. Then he held it out.

Crowley raised an eyebrow. He picked up his own glass, and clinked it against Aziraphale’s.

“Suppose we will,” he said. Something approaching a smile was touching his lips; Aziraphale felt the corners of his own lifting in response. “Cheers.”

***

Aziraphale got into the car, and shut the door. Just outside, what probably used to be a parapet or something toppled to the ground with an almighty crash. He had noticed, however, that Crowley's car hadn't so much as a scratch on it. Even rubble knew better than to try falling on the Bentley, he supposed.

Seemingly quite unbothered by the evening’s happenings, Crowley was starting the car. He gave the dashboard a loving pat, then looked over at Aziraphale.

“Back to the bookshop, then?”

Aziraphale hesitated. He was keenly aware that getting into the car had already put him on thin ice.

“Yes, I... I think so.”

He had set the bag in his lap and was holding it close to his body, as though there was a chance it might be snatched away. Crowley shot him a look of mild amusement.

"They're safe now, you know. You don't have to keep holding on to them like that."

Aziraphale shook his head wordlessly. He'd almost let them be blown to smithereens once; that was never happening again, not if he could help it.

"Oh well—suit yourself."

Crowley pulled the car away from the curb, and perhaps out of deference to the fact that bombs were still falling over London, he elected not to go at a speed more appropriate for breaking the sound barrier. As they turned the corner, he reached absent-mindedly over to the console between the seats and pushed a button. Aziraphale jumped as a disembodied voice began flatly to deliver the evening news, and looked around in great concern.

“Well, that’s new,” he said worriedly.

Crowley looked quite pleased. “The newest, actually. I’ve been in touch with the fellow who invented it. All sorts of interesting ideas. They’d like to get one in every car. The future of listening, they call it.”

Aziraphale made an interested sound.

“Can you listen to records on it?”

Crowley winced, as though he’d been hoping Aziraphale wouldn’t ask. “Well... no. Not yet, exactly.” Then he brightened. “But I’ll have one for sure, whenever they get around to inventing it.”

“I’m sure you will,” said Aziraphale, amused.

“Mmhm.” Crowley drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, quiet for a moment. Then he gave Aziraphale a little sideways look. “You know, I could... take you for a drive, if you happened to be interested. A nice slow one. Along the coast, or something.”

There was a beat.

Aziraphale swallowed. His throat felt strangely dry.

“That sounds...” As he rummaged for the right word, he could feel the ice underfoot growing thinner by the moment, and out of instinct clung more tightly to the bag of books in his lap. “That sounds— _lovely_ , Crowley,” he said at last, “but I...”

He left the sentence dangling, but there was really no need for him to finish it. The murmur of the radio filled the silence on the rest of the way back. Aziraphale looked out of the passenger’s side window at the darkened streets rushing by, and found himself wondering dully if he’d perhaps made a mistake.

Eventually, they pulled up by the bookshop. Crowley put on the parking brake, but left the car idling. He coughed, then made a valiant attempt at a chuckle.

“So. Try not to get taken in by any more Nazi spies before the war’s over, eh? Can’t promise I’ll always be around to lend a hand.”

Aziraphale said nothing. He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to sort through all his thoughts. Honestly, it just seemed... inadequate, somehow. It might have taken him months or even years to get a new body after being discorporated, considering the hoops you had to jump through these days—the entire war could have been over by the time he was back on Earth. And then there was the matter of the books, which Crowley had so thoughtfully saved from an explosive demise.

If you looked at it _that_ way, he was actually being terribly ungrateful. Unangelic, even.

And after all this time—after everything—it just seemed like the right thing to do.

He took a deep breath.

“Would you like to come in?”

Crowley’s jaw dropped.

“What—right now?”

That wasn’t quite the reaction Aziraphale had expected. (If he hadn’t long since disabled most of the inconvenient bodily functions of his current form, he would have been starting to sweat.)

“I only meant—if it wasn’t an imposition. I could open a bottle of wine, if you happened to be in the mood. Oh—but of course you’ve got somewhere else to be, people are _ever_ so busy these days...”

“ _No!_ ” In any other situation, he might have found the sheer panic on Crowley’s face amusing; at the moment it only hiked up his anxiety. “I never said that, I just...” He shut his mouth abruptly, and then reached up, readjusting the sunglasses on the bridge of his nose with care. Then, in a voice of artificial detachment, he continued, “I suppose I could go for a glass, yeah. What have you got?”

“Oh, well,” said Aziraphale, with transparent relief, “I have a wonderful earthy red that you simply _must_ try.” Beaming, he got out of the car and hurried over to the front of the bookshop. He heard Crowley locking up the car behind him as he fumbled with his key ring, and then got impatient and miracled the door open, hoping that Crowley wouldn’t notice.

Crowley had visited the shop before, of course—had even brought flowers on its opening day back at the start of the nineteenth century—but Aziraphale had never asked him to come into the back before. In fact, he’d never asked anyone to come into the back before, at least, not for social reasons. It was his private sanctum, his messy little paradise, the one place where he truly felt at home.

He pushed the door open, and then stepped back with a polite gesture.

“After you.” He smiled nervously. “Mind your step—I expect some books may have fallen over from all the ruckus...”

But instead of walking inside, Crowley simply looked at him. Behind the dark glasses, his expression was inscrutable.

“You’re sure about this?”

Despite himself, Aziraphale swallowed.

Then he gathered himself up, swelling to his full height—which was unfortunately still several centimetres shorter than Crowley—and rounded on Crowley, greatly affronted.

“My dear boy, I wouldn’t have made the suggestion at all if I wasn’t. In _fact_ —” he said, with sudden inspiration, beginning to shoo Crowley in with sweeping hand motions, “with how late it is, I think you’d best stay the night. It can be _very_ dangerous to be out and about at this time, you know, and you shouldn’t be driving around in the dark anyway...”

“That’s kind of you,” said Crowley, with a mixture of amusement and sheer confusion, allowing himself to be bullied inside the shop.

Though no one had touched it, the door shut behind them, and then locked itself firmly. The ‘closed’ sign in the front window lifted up, spun around a few times, then landed back on ‘closed’.

In the back of the shop, a light came on. There was laughter, and the clink of wine glasses. A little while later, the light downstairs went off. Then the light upstairs came on, and stayed that way for quite some time.

***

Even if it had been the wrong child all along, Aziraphale had enjoyed their time with young Warlock. He fancied himself a decent teacher of morals and suchlike. Plus, he’d cut his teeth on the Christ child back in the day—the Antichrist child couldn’t have been all that different, or so he’d imagined.

But then it had turned out that Adam Young was an entirely different beast, in multiple senses of the word. If he didn’t want the apocalypse, then it was averted. That was easy enough. The problem was what came after.

The first sign that something was wrong was when Crowley fell to the ground, repeatedly screaming ‘no’ in what appeared to be terrible agony. The second sign was the awful feeling of otherworldly foreboding that followed, but considering the severity of the first sign, it was really quite superfluous.

“Right,” said Crowley, in a voice of forced calm, once he’d peeled himself up off the floor. “That was that. It was nice knowing you.”

The words _And you, my dear_ were on his lips, but Aziraphale made himself say something else.

“We can’t give up _now_.”

Crowley stared at him incredulously.

“This is Satan himself. It isn’t about Armageddon. This is _personal_. We are _fucked!_ ”

The ground gave another terrible lurch; somewhere behind him, Madame Tracy screamed. Aziraphale leaned down and swiped his old sword up off the ground. It wasn’t flaming anymore, thankfully, but it still reminded him of the old days. For one delirious moment he thought of pointing it at Crowley and cracking a joke, maybe calling him ‘serpent’ for old times’ sake, but there wasn’t any time.

“Come up with something, or...” He looked at the sword, then back at Crowley. Who did he think he was kidding? He'd never been any good with the pointy end of a sword. He dug deep inside himself, searching for something with which to wound—the unimaginable, the one thing that could not be borne. “Or...” The arm that held the sword went limp; his voice quavered. “I’ll never talk to you again.”

He was nearly panting with the effort of saying it. In some ways it was true, of course—if Satan the Destroyer came bursting out of the ground and flattened them all like bugs they probably never would get the chance to talk again—but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

Crowley looked at him in deepest shock. His eyes, exposed without his usual dark glasses, searched the ground frantically as though the solution might just happen to be lying somewhere near their feet. A low growl began to build in his throat, becoming a scream as he flung his arms into the air in desperation.

Already feeling better, Aziraphale shut his eyes, and waited. Crowley would figure something out. It would turn out all right, he was sure of it.

(After all, if you couldn’t trust a serpent, who could you trust?)

***

“Don’t think I’ve seen that much food since Roman times,” said Crowley as they exited the premises. He patted his stomach gingerly. “Pity champagne hadn’t been invented back then, eh? Bet they’d have loved it.”

Aziraphale was having trouble remembering which one of them had paid the bill. Surely one of them had... Probably. He belched, and then looked a bit embarrassed, making a mental note to come back the next day and set things right.

“I think they had quite enough to drink already without adding champagne to the mix. Have you forgot the Bacchanalia?”

Crowley snorted. “Forgotten it? I invented it. Anyway—lift home?”

Aziraphale nodded without hesitation. It was a beautiful day, and if he wasn’t hallucinating it there were even birds singing somewhere, but he was much too heavy to try walking all the way back to the shop. “Yes, please. Although— _do_ make sure you go under the speed limit today, or I’m afraid the inside of your car will be seeing a fresh coat of paint. Courtesy of my stomach.”

“All right, all right,” said Crowley, with faux impatience. “Just for today, then.”

They got into the car, and as Aziraphale pulled on his seat belt, he suddenly remembered something that put a damper on his good mood. He faltered, biting the inside of his lip.

“Crowley?”

“Mmm?” Crowley was on his phone; it looked as though he was trying to find something to listen to.

“Do you... mind if I ask you something?”

Crowley snorted. “We’re not putting Bach on again. I’m tired of listening to Freddie Mercury harmonising to it.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s...” He was quiet for a moment. “Do you remember when we were talking, in that bar? When I was, er. Discorporated.”

Crowley gave a twitch. Apparently, it wasn’t a very fond memory.

“What about it?”

“Well.” Aziraphale shifted uneasily. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to ask about this, but. At the time, you mentioned that you’d lost your best friend. I was a bit distracted then, but I wanted to offer proper condolences. Did I, er, know them...?”

There was a long, _very_ long, silence.

Then Crowley let his head fall on the steering wheel. The horn went off, frightening a passerby into dropping her grocery bags. Aziraphale jumped, then absently waved a hand in her direction, healing all the broken eggs in the carton she had dropped.

“Crowley? What’s the matter? I’m so sorry—I didn’t realise how upset this would make you—”

“Angel,” said Crowley, in _Satan-give-me-strength_ tones, “Just. Shut up for a minute.” He took off his glasses for a moment to massage the bridge of his nose, then replaced them, and starting rubbing his temples instead. “I can’t believe how bloody stupid you are sometimes,” he muttered. “A complete and utter _idiot_. Can you _believe_ I fell for such an idiot?”

“I’m not an—”

Then Aziraphale stopped talking. He rewound the conversation in his head, and played it back.

He turned his head slowly to face Crowley. Crowley was simply... watching him. It occurred to Aziraphale that he was waiting for him to say something—for any kind of reaction.

All he could think to say, though, in a very small voice, was: “Well, you _are_ very good at falling.”

The corners of Crowley’s mouth twitched.

“Am I?”

“Oh, I think so,” said Aziraphale, who was beginning to smile himself. He waffled for a moment, then gestured politely towards Crowley’s face. “Might I—?”

Crowley looked a bit leery, like he wasn’t sure where this was going, but eventually shrugged. So Aziraphale reached out, gingerly pinching the bridge of his dark glasses between thumb and forefinger to pull them off his face. He folded them up carefully, set them down in his lap, and then looked back to Crowley.

“You know,” he began to say, with the air of someone who has been holding on to a secret for a very long time, “I’ve always loved your eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to tell you that.”

He watched Crowley’s throat move, heard the silence as he stopped breathing for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was faint.

“Always?”

Aziraphale nodded, now staring at his lap. “Since the day we met, I’d say.”

He jumped again as Crowley reached over, sliding a hand over his. At first he thought Crowley was getting his glasses back, but instead he folded his fingers over the back of Aziraphale’s hand, giving it a little squeeze. Aziraphale raised his head to look back at Crowley—but Crowley’s eyes were on the road, as he started the car with his other hand.

“Back to yours, then? Or mine?”

“Oh. Oh... well...” Aziraphale wondered vaguely if it was impolite to switch off one’s bodily functions while in the company of others. The feeling of blood rushing into the backs of his ears was quite uncomfortable. He shrugged, and said, as nonchalantly as he could manage, “You know, it’s really the company the matters, so...”

Crowley smirked.

“Took you long enough to figure that one out.”

“Yes, well.” Aziraphale sighed. “Some of us are quite rubbish at falling, as it turns out.”

“ _Some of us_ ,” Crowley mimicked, and then laughed uproariously as he tried to dodge a smack on the arm, and nearly drove them onto the sidewalk. Eventually he got the car back under control, and at Aziraphale's cajoling, put on one of Mozart's operas, which Freddie sang quite beautifully.

Then he drove them home, together. Even after six thousand years, they had an awful lot to tell each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. I really hope you liked it. Comments and kudos are always appreciated.
> 
> This was written over a couple of weeks, including an extremely intense session for the final push over Freedom Weekend. I don't really know how it turned out, but boy am I glad to be done with it.
> 
> You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/andreaphobia) or [Tumblr](http://andreaphobia.tumblr.com), if you're interested in that sort of thing. (And also Discord!) I would love to make new Good Omens friends, so hit me up. o/


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